Iran plans to adopt tougher court sentences against violence against women under a bill whose key points have been accepted by lawmakers.

Talks that began more than ten years ago in Parliament resulted in the adoption on Sunday of the general principles of the bill entitled “Preventing the vulnerability of women and improving their safety against abuse”. The text, which may still undergo amendments, may be officially published within the next few months.

This proposed law comes seven months after the start of the protest movement that erupted over the September 16 death of Mahsha Amini, a young woman detained by the morality police who accused her of violating a strict dress code that specifically requires women to wear a headscarf.

In recent years, human rights advocates have called on the authorities to reform the law for the protection of women and toughen penalties against spousal violence, domestic violence.

The proposed law therefore provides for a prison sentence of up to 15 years, compared to the current 10 years for a man convicted of femicide, if the victim’s family rejects the principle of the death penalty in court.

Transmission of pornographic images without the woman’s consent and forcing a woman into marriage are also criminalised.

The bill also allows the judiciary to grant married women permission to leave the country even if their spouses prevent them from traveling abroad.

The debate on this matter was raised in 2015, when the husband of the captain of the women’s national football team banned her from taking part in the Asian Cup.

The latest available tally indicates that nearly 77,000 medical examinations were carried out in 2019 in relation to allegations of spousal violence against women in Iran.

In early January, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei lamented that “men in Iranian society rely on their physical strength to oppress women within the family.” “The solution is for the laws to be so strong that no man can suppress them,” he had declared.